Treatment of jute fiber



Patented Aug. 4, 1931 UETED STATES PATENT QFFEQE JOSEPH VIALLET, OF PARIS, FRANCE, ASSIGNOR TO N. T. ARTIFICIAL WOOL COMPANY, LEMITED, OF LONDON, ENGLAND, A COMPANY OF GREAT BRITAIN TREATMENT OF JUTE FIBER No Drawing.

This invention relates to improvements in the treatment of jute fiber.

Jute fiber as it arrives from India is still ligneous since it has not undergone any tech nical working up process. In fact, it has only been sub ected simply to an uncontrolled maceration in the native manner. Accordingly factories are obliged to subject it to mechanical treatments with expensive 1o machinery in order to render it softer and more supple with a view to making it capable of being spun, that is to say, in order to convert it into large fabrics and sacks.

In accordance with the present invention jute is improved and the properties thereof are modified by means of a new type of maceration.

Experiments have proved that the lack of suppleness and fineness of the fiber is due exclusivmy to lack of maceration. However, it is not easy to effect a new maceration of the fiber. The new maceration process of the present invention is eminently suited to technical application and gives particularly favourable results.

The process of manufacture of this invention comprises essentially the treatment of jute with a liquid containing bacteria produced by the fermentation of flax and/or hemp. This process may be carried out in the following manner At the time of maceration of flax and hemp usually in summer a quantity of the aqueous liquor is taken in which the fermentation of the said fibers is already far advanced. This liquor is charged with the well known microbes or bacteria which attack with violence in a suitable medium the pectoses and lignines adhering to the fibers.

A treating bath is prepared by warming water to about :2532 C. and inscminating it with a virile culture of the bacteria described above. There is added per litre of bath about 0.5 cc. of commercial potassium phosphate or body of similar nutritive properties. The bundles of jute are immersel in this bath which is maintained at 30 to 33 C. After some time bubbles of gas are seen escaping from the bath which indicates that the maceration is commencing and that be spoiled.

Application filed October 5, 1929, Serial No. 397,754, and in France October 8, 1928.

the bacilli are attacking the pectic and ligneous substances still attached to the fiber. This maceration must be carefully supervised since it must not be allowed to proceed too far as otherwise the fiber would The duration is 48 hours to four or even five days according to the charactor of the jute and when it is considered that the process has continued sufficiently long the bath is drawn off into a special vat which will serve to inseminate another bath since it is still very rich in bacilli. The application of a used bath for insemination purposes cannot, however be prolonged indefinitely.

After this treatment the fiber is dried until there remains only about 80% of water, then it is passed through a breaker carding machine and subsequently treated in a mercerizing bath, bleached and rendered supple by oils capable of emulsion, for example petroloum jelly, and finally dried.

he fiber thus obtained is flexible, soft. white and of a beautiful brilliant and finished aspect which causes it to resemble wool.

WVhat I claim is 1- 1. In the manufacture of textile fibers suitable for spinning from jute fibers, the step of subjecting the fibers to fermentation in the presence of liquor resulting from the maceration of vegetable fibrous material of the group comprising flax and hemp.

2. In the manufacture of textile fibers suitable for spinning from jute fibers and other similar vegetable fibers, the step of subjecting the fibers to fermentation in the presence of liquor resulting from the maceration of vegetable fibrous material such as fiax and hem a and in the presence of a nutritive salt.

In testimony that I claim the foregoing to be my invention, I have signed my name this 23rd day of September, 1929.

JOSEPH VIALLET. 

